


pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in.

by anneweaver



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, as i have probably mentioned countless times before i am total trash, i am so turning this into a verse and i hate myself for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-10
Packaged: 2018-02-28 23:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2751305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneweaver/pseuds/anneweaver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Out of all the things Lance Hunter was expecting the girl in the flower dress to threaten Coulson with, he was not expecting a picture of his baby sister holding a dead drop with information for SHIELD to be it. <br/>So, naturally, he panics.</p>
<p>(Or, the one where Lance and Jemma are real siblings).</p>
            </blockquote>





	pull the curtains and blinds to let the light in.

Out of all the things Lance Hunter was expecting the girl in the flower dress to threaten Coulson with, he was not expecting a picture of his baby sister holding a dead drop with information for SHIELD to be it.

So, naturally, he panics.

“May,” he says, the fear obvious in his voice, “can you explain  _what the hell is happening right now?_ ” He can only hear some struggling over his comm, and Skye’s rising voice as confused and scared as his own. “ _May, I’m going in,_ ” he warns, and May finally answers. She sounds like she’s physically restraining someone.

“Hunter, do  _not_ engage. Coulson’s got this under control,” she answers, in between small gasps. He’s trying very, very hard not to make his way to the table where Coulson and the girl are sitting and grab the phone to stop that email from sending, and, really, there’s no reason for him not to do it.

Except, perhaps, the fact that May just might _not_ be lying and Coulson _might_ have this under control and his sister _might_ not be in real danger.

He has learned that these possibilities should be powerful enough to keep him level-headed. He focuses on his breathing instead.

“Please let him know we’re having a strongly-worded talk once we’re back home,” he says, through his teeth, fully aware that Coulson is listening, and grips the table a little tighter. May hums in response, on the other side.

At Coulson’s table, the girl’s face darkens with fear.

-o-

“There are _hundreds_ of people in this world, there are _dozens_ of people in this organization, and you felt like sending _my baby sister, of all people, undercover inside a terrorist organization full of murderous psychopaths?_ ” he shouts at Coulson, while the other man merely sits in his chair, looking at him with his eyebrows raised. They had made it through the mission alive, but there was still a small problem: his sister was inside a HYDRA building right after her cover had just been blown.

“Can I just say in my defense that, believe me, this is the last thing I wanted to do–”

“ _Then why the hell would you do it?_ ”

“She specifically asked me to send her on this mission–”

“Oh _c’mon!_ ” he says, once again using that high-pitched voice he only uses when he’s upset, “Do you even _know_ her, Coulson?! _She’s a terrible liar!_ You know that.”

“Oh, I know that, Hunter, trust me, but she can be very convincing when she wants to, and you know that,” Coulson offers, and Lance can only sigh in response and sit down on the available chair. Coulson sits straighter.

“I think I deserve an explanation. About everything.” Lance says. Coulson nods.

“I am aware I should have told you Simmons was undercover at HYDRA when I debriefed you about everything else,” he starts, “but I can promise you that I have been keeping this from you and the whole team for her safety and her safety only.”

“Even though I am her brother? Her _family_?” he asks, and if there’s a hint of bitterness in his voice, Coulson pretends not to notice; he is very aware it would not be the first time Hunter’s family hides things from him in favor of a super secret spy organization.

“Nobody else knows,” Coulson replies, and then frowns. “Well, May knows, but…”

Deep down, Lance knows this is not a new occurrence. He was married to a spy for a few years, he knows how these things work, and he thinks he knows where Coulson is coming from.  But, at the same time, that is his baby sister in there, and he _is_ a part of this team. Coulson should have told him.

“You should have told me,” Lance says, mirroring his thoughts, “even if just because that’s my sister, and she’s in danger. I mean, c’mon, Coulson, _she can’t lie._ She ruined the fun of a great majority of my teenage years with her utter inability to lie. Even if she asked for it herself, which, I am aware she is the kind of person who would do that, what with her hero complex and stuff, why would you, as the Director, think it’s a good idea to send her inside HYDRA, of all places?”

“Don’t you think I am aware of all the things you just told me, Hunter?” Coulson says, and then looks at the window, avoiding Hunter’s gaze. “But she _insisted_. And I just couldn’t keep her here, she was… She just wasn’t doing well. If you had seen her, you would’ve made the same choice I did. I made that choice as the Director, because we did need someone inside HYDRA, but I mostly made it as someone who cares about her wellbeing,” Coulson says, and finally meets Hunter’s gaze again, which should mean the worst of the conversation is over, “I can assure you she’s in good hands, though. I do have that under control. She’s on her way to the Playground right now.”

For the first time since he saw her picture in that girl’s phone, he can breathe easily.

-o-

He decides, once he walks into the common room, that today was definitely not a predictable day.

Bobbi is there, brown hair and sporting that cocky grin she _always_ wears, talking to Mack like not a thing has changed, and his sister is nowhere to be seen and he wants to commit murders.

“Bobbi?” he asks. The grin wipes off her face when she looks at him.

“Oh, hi, Hunter. Nice suit,” she says, shamelessly looking at him from his head to toes, and it’s utterly _infuriating_. He wants nothing more than to snark at her and tell her how much that horrible, _horrible_ brown hair doesn’t suit her (which has nothing to do with the fact that he definitely prefers her blonde), but there are more important tasks at hand and he has become good at sucking it up, thanks to her, actually.

“As much as I’d like to stay and chat,” he says, and she rolls her eyes at that, “I must ask where my sister is.”

“I would leave her alone for a moment,” May says in that moment, and there’s a small hint of do-not-fuck-with-me in her voice, enough to make him flinch.

“Is there something I need to know?” he asks, looking at May, and then at Bobbi. They both have their poker faces on. He supposes he should’ve known they’d do that.

“She’s safe,” Bobbi answers, nicer than he was expecting, “and she’s not badly injured. She’ll probably have a few bruises, but she’s fine.” and then, just for good measure, she smirks and says, “You’re welcome.”

“...Thank you,” he says in the most monotone voice he can manage, and then he turns around and leaves the common room.

He finds her on the hallway right outside of the lab. She’s got her back turned to him and she’s making her way towards the bedroom area.

“Jem!” he calls, and she stops dead in her tracks and turns around. She’s as tiny as he remembers, but her hair is shorter and wavy, and her face is rougher than it should be.  

When she looks up at him, she doesn’t smile. Instead, her eyes are full of unshed tears and her lower lip is quivering.

“Lance?” she says, and her voice breaks in that very moment. He walks to her as fast as his legs can muster and wraps his arms around her shoulders, tight and welcoming and loving in a way that, he assumes, only a brother who hasn’t seen his baby sister in years would do. She wraps her own arms around his waist, rests her head against his chest, and sobs.

It sounds like she hasn’t gotten to break down in months. He only holds her tighter.

-o-

He has to pick her up and carry her to his room because her legs don’t feel strong enough to walk, and she clings tightly to his neck, silent tears flowing down her cheeks.

He has a brief flashback to a New Years’ Eve party their parents held over ten years ago; she was seventeen and drunk and about to exchange the home she had always known for a life she didn’t fully understand yet. He was twenty-four at the time and had recently gotten to go home after a few months in the army, and he remembers being harsher than usual at her during the little time they spent together; still, she had clung to him for dear life, hiding her face on his neck and whispering every fear and every insecurity she had, while he rubbed her back and soothed her and momentarily forgot about every new memory haunting his dreams.

She remembers that party too just because, back then, that was a side of her only her brother got to see.

Right now, as he walks with her in his arms, he can see it’s really not much different, except for some reason she seems less scared and more resigned. He has to wonder if it’s maybe because she, like him when he was her age, has been hardened by the things she had to experience in SHIELD. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s just that he missed his baby sister turning into an adult, a grown up. Maybe he wasn’t there when that baby girl whose first word was his name, the one whose first steps were taken toward him, the one whose first full blown laugh was given thanks to his tickling, the one who graduated alongside him even when she’s six and a half years younger than him, had to experience the kind of life-altering moments that only make you more impervious to outside damage. Maybe he just wasn’t there to protect her. Maybe she didn’t really need it.

Maybe she did. Maybe she needed _him_. Maybe he failed as a brother.

“This is not how I expected our reunion to go,” she says, weakly, once they reach his room, and he smiles briefly before running his fingers through her hair.

“Honestly,” he says, “since I wasn’t even expecting to _have_ a reunion, I’ll gladly take this.”

“I’m sorry,” she replies, looking at the floor, immediately realizing the implication of what he said. His fingers are still running absentmindedly through her hair.

“Don’t be sorry for being alive,” he says. She looks at him, guilt washing over every feature of her face.

“That’s the problem, Lance,” she says, and a sob escapes from her throat. She covers her mouth, and looks at him with eyes wide open, just like she did when she was younger, every time she had done something wrong. And then breaks down in body-wracking sobs again.

He rubs her back and wipes the tears off her face, and doesn’t say anything when she says, between sobs, “This is all my fault.”

She falls asleep with her head resting on his chest, and her arm draped across his waist.

-o-

He knows what happened, only because Coulson felt the need to debrief him about that as soon as he was sure he wouldn’t betray the team again. He knows Jemma almost died quite a few times, and he knows she saved Fitz from certain death, and he also knows the Fitz he met during that Christmas back at 2006 is not the same Fitz who struggles with his words and his ideas and his life right now. He knows all of those things are related.

He’s now completely sure his sister left because seeing Fitz like that was killing her, and he would have guessed even if she hadn’t fallen asleep while whispering it was all her fault and trying to explain the reasoning behind her decision to him, more to reassure herself that it was the right thing than to explain herself to him. He had let her, because she was never good at hiding her guilt complex (which remained unaddressed because every time he tried to _actually_ address it, she’d wave it off as a ‘silly thing’ and told him not to worry) and this was a step in the right direction, or so he hoped.

When she wakes up, it’s 2am and her face is blotchy, her cheeks are red and she’s still clinging to him. He looks at her.

“Hey, Jem. You okay now?” he asks.

“I think so, yes,” she replies, slowly, mostly to make sure she means it, and sits on the bed, starts running her fingers through her hair to tame it. “Are you?” she asks, because if there is something true about Jemma Simmons is that she would worry about the wellbeing of the rest of the world even when she is barely holding herself together.

“That’s not the pressing issue right now,” he says, and she nods. “What just happened was…” he doesn’t finish the sentence, because he doesn’t quite have the words to describe what just happened. When he finally thinks of a word, he doesn’t have the heart to say it; Jemma wouldn’t appreciate him calling her breakdown “terrifying,” as much as it was.

“That was very improper of me, I know,” she says, and, he has to admit, _improper_ works too, at least for her standards, “I apologize.”

“Don’t,” he mutters, “how long have you been holding that in?”

“Not very long,” she replies, but she’s still not looking at him, definitely in an avoiding manner. That tells him all he needs to know; after all, she has _never_ been good at lying.

“Months,” he states, more to himself than to her. She doesn’t say anything. “What happened to you?” he asks.

She looks at the ceiling, like she’s trying to hold back tears once again, but this time she doesn’t cry.

“I keep having nightmares,” she starts, and he sits up straighter and looks at her, “and it’s all– it’s all the same thing. It’s him, right after he woke up, except this time he’s not as confused as he was back then. He’s just looking at me and he’s so _disappointed_ ,” her voice breaks in that moment, but she still doesn’t cry. She’s amazingly strong, and he admires her a lot for it. “In the dream I can’t do anything for him, just like I couldn’t do anything for him, and I still can’t, and it’s killing me. I was- I only left because I knew he would be better off without me. He is better off without me. And I have been inside HYDRA all this time knowing this was all _their_ fault, and I was by myself and I’ve been so alone and I’m just. I’m just so scared all the time.”

She’s still not crying, and it doesn’t look like she will. He can only squeeze her hand for a moment, and urge her to look at him.

“I can try to convince you none of this is your fault, but I know you won’t believe me because you’re stubborn and never do,” he says, and that manages to get a little grin out of her, which is a small victory he definitely cherishes, “so instead I’m just going to promise you that you are not, and you will _never_ be alone. You’re safe now. You’ve got all these people who would kill for you without a doubt, and Jem, you’ve got me. You’ve always had me. I’m sorry if you ever thought you didn’t, and I must admit I haven’t always been a good brother–”

“That’s a lie,” she immediately says, and he squeezes her hand harder.

“–but you are my sister and I won’t ever let you feel unsafe or lonely again,” he says, and then smirks, “even if it means I need to join SHIELD permanently.” Jemma rolls her eyes and sighs loudly.

“Because joining SHIELD is such a terrible thing to do, God forbid Lance Hunter would ever want to do some good for humanity–” she mutters, and it sounds _so much_ like ten-year-old Jemma trying to get him to stop smoking that he has to smile briefly.

“Hey, I was sort of working for SHIELD with Izzy and Idaho! Isn’t that enough good done for humanity?” he asks, and mentioning Izzy and Idaho stings a little, but there are other, more important matters at hand.

“You were doing _mercenary work_ ,” she says, “that is not exactly doing good for humanity! And Mum and Dad would have never approved of that.”

“They don’t approve of this either,” he reminds her, gently, and she smiles.

“I know. I think it’s best if they think I’m dead.”

“That is not true and you know it,” he says, bitterly, but decides to let it go, changes the topic instead, “but as you know already, I do a lot of things mum and dad don’t approve of. Which is why I’ve been officially a part of SHIELD for a while now,” he says, and Jemma looks at him, narrowing her eyes, trying to see if he’s joking. He’s not. She notices.

“You didn’t do this for me, did you?” is the first thing she asks, a small hint of panic in her voice. He offers a small smile, trying to be as reassuring as possible.

“Not entirely, no. Let’s just say you’re not the only one feeling guilty.”

-o-

The next morning, they have pancakes. Trip joins them, ruffles Jemma’s hair, fist-bumps Lance, and then says “See, you are the kind of siblings I can get behind,” which makes Jemma laugh and gets a confused glare and frown from Lance, who decides not to say anything; it did make his sister laugh, so he’ll take it.

Skye joins them a while later and comments on how all the stories Jemma kept telling about her older brother made much more sense now that she’s met him, and steals a pancake from Jemma’s plate.

That morning, his sister is all smiles and wit, and there’s not even a trace of the guilt and the hopelessness he had to witness the night before, and he marvels at how wonderful she is and how, even after all these years, she still works the same as always.

He looks at her and knows that she will be okay. When she’s not, though, he will make sure to be there to hold her together.

Meanwhile, he can steal pancakes from her plate and put up with her faux-annoyance, and he will tell their teammates embarrassing stories from her childhood and watch her blush until the blood vessels on her face cannot hold any more blood, and then mock her and pretend the smack she’ll give him doesn’t hurt.

She rests her feet on his lap and smiles at him, wide and full of life and hope. He smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this, I really don't, so I'm just gonna get the serious stuff out of the way before I mention how much I hate myself for this.
> 
> a) Their last names are still Hunter and Simmons and that will most likely be explained in depth in another fic I'm already working on but, long story short, Hunter's dad dies and his mum then marries Mr. Simmons and that's when Jemma is born. Hunter does consider Mr. Simmons his dad (and calls him dad), but they never change his last name out of respect. Details, details. Again, I'll explain that later.  
> b) This is the first part of a verse, because I (obviously) just couldn't resist turning this into a verse. The thought of them actually being siblings on the show makes me all weak in my knees, so I had to do it. I _had_ to.
> 
> As always, infinite thanks to Emma (for being the greatest beta ever) and Rach (for letting me send her sad lancejemma headcanons very, very late at night).


End file.
